Comparison of the effect of oral care with four different antiseptics to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia in adults: protocol for a network meta-analysis

Background Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is defined as the occurrence of pneumonia in patients receiving mechanical ventilation for more than 48 h after endotracheal intubation. The implementation of effective oral care with antiseptics may reduce the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia. However, previous studies have been unclear about the best antiseptic for this purpose. Therefore, present protocol proposed to perform a network meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy of different antiseptics to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia.